Brian’s Column: Cops Goin’ Wild?

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Brian Wright

Open letter to a prospective county sheriff
by Brian Wright

Mike, so as a prospective sheriff candidate, how do you feel about the War on Drugs? [And I sent this link to him.]

Does the county get federal funds based on numbers of marijuana smokers arrested by sheriff’s deputies? The LP is of course wholly against laws against what drugs one prefers, and moreover, like Prohibition, to put it in the words of my favorite (ex) Michigan cop of all time, Howard Wooldridge, “the Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow.”— Citizens Opposing Prohibition. Continue reading →

Book Review: Starving the Monkeys (2009)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Brian Wright

Fight back smarter
by Tom Baugh

Tom Baugh is a Free Stater, and I met him at the 2010 Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire—New Hampshire being the Free State. I don’t believe he has moved yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time. When you attend a Free State event such as a Liberty Forum in the late winter or a Porcupine Festival in the summer, it’s easy to spot the Real McCoy, so to speak, when it comes to the frontline types of the Free State ‘movement.’

Baugh is the Real McCoy… straight shooter, look you in the eye, don’t tread on me, etc. And yes, like ~60% of the men and ~20% of the women at public events like this one, he’s packing heat. When you’ve been around so many individuals like Tom, even on twice-a-year schedule, it dawns on you that New Hampshire did not become the Free State by accident. You also begin to see that the reasons the country is going down the tubes have everything to do with the deliberate barriers to individuals like Tom who would naturally rise to political leadership… in favor of, well, “the monkeys” who pretend to be in charge. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Lost Weekend (1945)

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Brian Wright

Groundbreaking piece on bottle trouble ___ 8/10

Don Birnam: Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can’t take quiet desperation!

Don Birnam: It shrinks my liver, doesn’t it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does to the mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly I’m above the ordinary. I’m competent. I’m walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I’m one of the great ones. I’m Michelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I’m Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I’m Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I’m John Barrymore before movies got him by the throat. I’m Jesse James and his two brothers, all three of them. I’m W. Shakespeare. And out there it’s not Third Avenue any longer, it’s the Nile. Nat, it’s the Nile and down it moves the barge of Cleopatra. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Russian Peace Gambit?

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Brian Wright

Proposal to subject chem weapons to UN control
by Pepe Escobar writing in Russia Today

The frantic spin of the millisecond is that the White House is taking a ‘hard look’ at the Russian proposal for Bashar Assad to place Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal under UN control, thus at least postponing another US war in the Middle East.

Oh, the joys of the geopolitical chessboard; Russia throwing a lifeline to save US President Barack Obama from his self-spun ‘red line’.

True diplomats are supposed to prevent wars – not pose as warmongers. American exceptionalism is of course exempted. So just as Secretary of State John Kerry had the pedal on the metal selling yet another war in a London presser, his beat up Chevy was overtaken by a diplomatic Maserati: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: An Inconvenient ‘Poof!’

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Brian Wright

A bedtime story for my seven-year-old
by Brian Wright

Virginia, just for a moment I want to tell you a story about what happened after a mysterious big ‘blowup’ in a major American city to see whether public officials and law enforcement persons observed the highest professional standards in finding out what caused it. What happened was the complete destruction of a tall steel-frame building in lower Manhattan Island of New York City. First, please view the video of this building falling down by clicking the image on the right. Note that the video is only nine seconds long, and several of these seconds record the astounded reaction of people on the street. Continue reading →